Asiana acknowledges pilot error as cause of fatal SFO crash

By Dino D'Amore
April 1, 2014 20:30

Asiana Airlines has acknowledged that the “probable cause” of the fatal crash in San Francisco in July 2012 was its pilot flying too slow. However the airline has stated that “inconsistencies” in the 777-200ER’s autothrottle also contributed to the crash. Asiana said the plane’s navigation equipment “led the crew to believe that the autothrottle was maintaining the airspeed set by the crew” and instead the equipment “disabled the aircraft’s minimum airspeed protection.” Boeing has denied this and stated that all its systems were functioning as expected before the crash and “did not contribute to the accident.” Boeing documents state that the Asiana pilots should have aborted their landing 500 feet off the ground as stated by the airline’s own policy because of numerous cues that the plane’s speed was lowering, the thrust setting was incorrect and the plane was flying too low.